


just walk beside me

by Kt_fairy



Series: Oranges [2]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Apologies, Dex experiences emotional growth will we ever recover, Forgiveness, Gen, M/M, References to Depression, Unresolved Emotional Tension, real talk, supportive friendships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-27
Updated: 2018-01-27
Packaged: 2019-03-10 04:21:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13494868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kt_fairy/pseuds/Kt_fairy
Summary: Dex looked back down at the coin before standing and Derek held in a groan. He should have just talked this out with Dex and written off the rest of the day because if he did not have the energy for an apology he really did not have enough energy for the pissy look passing across Dex’s face.At least he’d be proved right about this all coming out in a fight.





	just walk beside me

**Author's Note:**

> This fic goes between Tea and Honey and Plain Sailing Weather, so you do need to read Tea and Honey before this for it to really make sense. Or not, do you.
> 
> Oranges was never meant to be a series. One day I wrote a fic about depression and suddenly there were four more. I was writing about depression and the relationship was kinda secondary so, looking back, there is one very glaring omission and this is to fix it.
> 
> And also because sometimes hearing an apology isn't easy.

 

 

_"Don’t walk behind me; I may not lead. Don’t walk in front of me; I may not follow. Just walk beside me and be my friend.”_

_— Winnie The Pooh, A.A Milne_

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 Dex was squatting in the middle of the floor. It was not that odd a sight when a set was bugging him but that usually involved more dark muttering and rapid finger-counting than what was currently going on, which was nothing at all. Literally. He was just staring at a point in the floorboards, Derek wondering if he should leave him to it or go get Bitty when he realised just what he was looking at.

 The Dibs Coin. 

“Whatcha doing there bud?”, Derek ventured, fully prepared to gtfo if Dex had finally hit his serial killer moment.

“What do you wanna do with this?”, Dex asked mildly, reaching out to lay a finger on the coin wedged between the floorboards.

“Do with it?”

“Yeah. One of us is going to fuck up our foot or something on it. It’s a hazard”, he looked up at Derek with such unexpected sincerity that it made Derek pause, unsure what was happening, “How do you wanna memorialise the peak of William Poindexter’s dickishness?”, Derek looked from the coin to Dex a couple of times as it slowly dawned on him that Dex was admitting he'd been in the wrong, knowing he probably looked a little gormless when Dex continued, "I wanna apologise for that."

 Derek felt like he'd lost an edge while skating full speed around a corner. He had never thought he was going to get an apology for the Dibs shit show, had accepted that the only closure he would get would be yelling his hurt and anger in Dex’s face during their next fight.

 He took in a deep breath, about to automatically encourage Dex to continue, but stopped himself. The last bout of depression had left him drained, he needed all his energy just to get through classes and practice and that left very little for the emotional work he knew he would need to do to process, well, _this_.

 He looked at Dex looking at him, weighing up what he should do, “I appreciate that you have something to say, and I’m glad you understand why you need to I just...I don’t…I don’t have the mental energy, after I…”, he sighed, “after my drop. Dex, I just cannot right this moment. Please.”

  Dex looked back down at the coin before standing and Derek held in a groan as he tipped his head back to stare at the ceiling as if it could possibly help him. He should have just talked this out with Dex and written off the rest of the day because if he did not have the energy for an apology he _really_ did not have enough energy for the pissy look passing across Dex’s face.

 At least he’d be proved right about this all coming out in a fight.

 He watched for Dex clenching his fists at his side, the tell that he was about to flip out, but he shoved them in his pockets instead as he turned on his heels towards the door, “I’m uh...I’m not storming out I’m gonna go deal with this away from you and…”, he pulled a face and stepped past Derek to leave the room.

“You’ll come back?”, Derek checked, catching Dex’s ears flush as he gave a curt nod before stepping through the door, Derek listening to him stomp down stairs and into the kitchen.

 Their friendship had always been made up of screaming arguments interspersed with periods of peace which reminded Derek just why they were friends. For the sake of their grades and sanities they had managed to keep to a truce for most of the time they'd shared the room and constantly since Derek’s bad drop. He sat down on his bed, collapsing back onto the mattress to stare at the still actively unhelpful ceiling. Derek had noticed the extra effort Dex had been putting in since then, and it felt - for want of a better word - good. 

 And yet there was a niggle he could not place, a whisper in the back of his mind reminding him of every problem they had ever had, an anxious tightness in his gut he could not place.

 

                                                                                             _X__X_

 

 

 Chris had good thighs to lay your head on, just the right amount of muscle to not be too hard but enough to be comfortable, and luckily for Derek he had second refusal after Farmer to use them as pillows.

 It was not quite warm enough to hang out comfortably outside but after months of snow and rain and central heating it was nice to be outside in the fresh spring air. That their country-boy third frog had not joined them out on the back porch probably spoke to the wisdom of it but as Mr.Wilde wrote _experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes_.

 They’d been having a thrilling conversation about orange juice - brand, pulp or no pulp, if there was a difference between California or Florida, was fresh squeezed really worth it - but had fallen silent now, C content to sit with his own thoughts while Derek stewed on his.

“Dex wants to apologise for the whole Dibs thing.”

“Dibs thing?”

“When he freaked out over the coin toss. About sharing with me.” 

 Derek picked his head up to let C shift, dropping it back down once he was still again, “I suppose with how he’s trying to not be a literal goblin anymore it makes sense, but you guys have fought worse over stuff.”

  Experiences were not universal. The way a game of Hockey was to Whiskey would be vastly different to how it was for Bitty, the breakfast line at the dining hall might be time wasting agony for one person and a chance for the peace of doing nothing for another, and although Chris and him both endured microaggressions and racism they were not the same.

  Derek was treated with suspicion and assumptions as varied as being a football player, part of a ‘get ghetto kids into college’ programme, to straight up criminality and terrorism. Meanwhile Chris was still being infantilized by their own Captain, people shocked when he was not polite and deferential, when he got wasted at parties and skipped lectures, that he wasn’t the fucking comic relief.

 Sometimes Derek forgot about the difference in their experiences. Chris (and Lardo) had reacted to his Dibs flip out as Dex just being Dex, not with the lingering fear Derek had that ‘just being Dex’ might include some other ugly internalised thing.

"When he was yelling at me he was every… there’s always the people who have no problem with you, who believe they have no problem, then when you do or say something they don’t like the way they turn on you or talk to you or dismiss you...you can tell it’s ‘cause you’re black even if they don’t realise it.”

 Chris’s face moved into Derek’s view, expression close to his goalie one, “You think that’s what the problem between you guys is?”

 Derek closed his eyes and tipped his face towards the weak sun, “My gut doesn’t say so. Not since well into freshman year. It’s always been - Shitty wears his wealth with disdain and Jack doesn’t wear it at all but I do, I’m not going to hide my parents hard work and success. I used to think it was ‘cause I was black and had money, but he’s okay with Rans.”

“He fucking loves Rans.”

“Fucking _loves_ him, bro. Never once pushed back at shit he said,  _goes_ to him about stuff, and then I was like, what is it about me? We had a problem _waaay_ before he found out I’m muslim, he came out last year so I doubt it’s still anything to do with…”, Derek swallowed down the words on his tongue but wasn’t stupid enough to think Chris didn’t know what he was going to say. _To do with this fucking thing that's always been between us that drives me up the wall._

“Not everyone can be Rans and Holtzy, or Jack and Shitty, or…”, Chris dropped a hand onto Derek’s chest with a sigh, “I used to feel terrible that I was best friends with both you guys but you could barely be in the same room as one another.”

“I’m sorry Chris, we were shitty friends freshman year.”

“It’s not that - you’re right, but it’s not that. You fought _all_ the _time_ but you wouldn’t leave one another alone. You fucking sat together on the bus! Who does that?”, he gave Derek a shake, “Who the fuck argues for an hour straight then sits together on the bus! Only to go off together to argue some more at a rest stop!? Then after playing like a dream together that night you'd snap at one another all through fucking dinner!”

 Chris let out an annoyed huff and Derek winced, “That sounded like a long time coming.”

“It is. I’ll have to go and yell at Dex now!”

 Derek laid a hand over the one resting on his chest, “Sorry Chris.”

“S’okay man. But do you understand what I’m trying to tell you?”

“That we’re stubborn assholes?”

“That you’re blockheaded, self centered, stubborn assholes. But you’re both still my best friends and _somehow_ one anothers as well”, he flipped his hand so he could lace their fingers together, “Not everyone gets on the same but it needs to be mutually supportive and healthy, and Dex is finally gonna let you guy work on being healthy. Thank fuck.”

 

                                                                                       _X_X_

 

 

“Rans?”

“Yeaaah bud”, the man in question was looking between the blue and red Gatorade bottles in his hand as he stood over the cooler they mixed the tub juice in, Derek making a mental note to ask which barber he went to in Boston because they had him looking sharp, “Oh Nursey my man, how are you doing?”

 Derek shrugged as he accepted the hug Rans offered, hopping up onto the counter next to him, “Chill.”

“Chill he says. Come on bro, I haven’t seen you in aaaages you gotta give me more than that, eh.”

 So Derek talked about the new skate blades he was trying out, the longer walk he was taking back from class now the weather was good, and about the flame war going on in the peer reviews of his and Farmers sociology seminar.

“Well that sounded wholly un-fratty.”

“I’m being good.”

“Yeah?”

“For my well being.”

 Rans nodded, “Gotta do you brah. I get swasty to let off steam, you live on the D/L for a while. Different strokes…”, he exaggerated a wink as he made an obscene gesture, Derek pulling a face that made Rans laugh. 

“What the fuck does your start-up make of you two fuckheads?”

“Fucking interracial power couple brah, the sun shines directly out of our finely formed Hockey butts.”

“How are you guys doing in Boston?”

“Underpaid and overworked bliss my dude. The full graduate experience. Don’t even get me started on paying loans back - the time to accept you’re gonna be in debt forever is now.”

“That sounds...nice?”

“No it's great. It’s s’awesome just doing shit with Holtzy", Rans grinned, "I love that strange man."

 Derek kicked his heels against the cabinets, smiling at the tinge of pink on Ransom’s ears, “That's sweet.”

“Right?”, he scooped up the Gatorade and held them out to Derek, “Red or Blue?" 

“Will one make me leave the matrix?”, Ransom raised one perfect eyebrow at him, “Red.”

“Samwell loyalty.”

“Blue hurl is the worse.”

“Look at you brah, year and a bit to go and you're growing up already.”

“Threw up on Dex's shoes one too many times.”

“So you only did it once?”, he asked as he cracked open the red bottles.

“Ah, I see you've met him.”

 Ransom chuckled, shooting Derek his dimpled grin which always made him blush as he began the imprecise science of mixing tub juice, “You two crazy kids doing okay?”

“Yeah why?”

“Seem a bit pensive.”

“I'm a humanities major, I'm always pensive. What's that got to do with me and Dex anyway?”, Ransom didn't lower himself to react to that and Derek sighed, knocking his head back against the wall cabinet, “How do you and Holtzy make it look so easy?”

“Our trouble was realising what emotions meant, not growing out of the hangups rural Maine can give a guy”, Ransom paused before saying gently, “Some people get along and some people don't.”

 Derek tightened his grip on the edge of the counter, “I want us to get along”, Ransom gave him a look and Derek prickled, sure Dex was Ransom’s rookie but that didn’t mean he had to take his side, “Getting along doesn't mean I have to be a doormat! He wouldn't respect me at all if I didn't stand up for myself.”

“He does respect you, bud. Especially your Hockey. It's why he gets so annoyed when you won't talk plays with him.”

“You didn't say anything about that when you were captain because?” 

“Because we were your captains,  _not_ your babysitters. It was in Dex's court to say something and he never did.”

 Derek dropped his gaze to his knees, mulling over what Ransom had said. Him and Dex played well together, they were a good, solid D-pair and he had always thought that at the end of their four years at Samwell the same sync they fell in to on the ice would have made its way into their lives. How could it not when they clicked so naturally on the ice? But he had never been good at managing his expectations.

“Look, eh”, Ransom sighed as he came to stand in front of Derek, “Holtzy can make some Nigerian jokes to me and my family because I’ve involved him in my culture and got him in on the jokes. And he's done the same by involving me in Jewish things. We can understand but never _know_ what it's like to grow up Nigerian or Jewish in North America”, he clapped his hands on Derek's knees, “Dex can understand and defend and support but he will never know like you do - he’s got to want to try to do those things and you’ll know better than any of us when and if he really does. Dex is a good kid but you know better than all of us that he's not easy…”, Ransom grinned, “Holtzy on the other hand is very easy.”

“Oh gross! That’s my Hockey dad you’re talking about!”

 Ransom laughed, dodging the jab Derek aimed at his ribs, “You got my permission to gross Dexy out about me.”

“No thanks.”

“Do you need any more advice?”

“I’m good. Thanks Rans.”

“You're welcome. Now if you’re not gonna get weirdly sexual about me to Dex you can either leave or help me with this tub juice.”

 

  
                                                                                      _X_X_

 

 

“ _Salaams habibti.”_

 _“_ Darling! I'm on the balcony say hello to Santa Barbara.”

“Hello Santa Barbara.”

“How are you? I saw the poetry you've been tweeting.”

“Yeah.”

“Oh _habibi_ ”, the five inch image of his sister’s face on his phone screen disappeared for a moment as she went inside to sit on the couch, “Do you wanna talk about it or shall I divert you entirely?”

“Both?” 

“I'll tell you all about the new show we're commissioning and you interrupt when you wanna, okay?”

“Thanks.”

 Yasmin talked for a bit about that, then the D tactics of the Rangers v LA Kings game she'd gone to, was half-way through describing the fight that had broke out right in front of her when Derek said, “Dex wants to apologise for his Dibs tantrum.”

“Wants to?”

“I didn't think I was going to get one, I needed to sort it all out in my head. And I didn't have the spoons for it right then.”

“Okay.” 

“That's it really.” 

“Well.”

“He should apologise. I've wanted...I’ve been trying to get him to see the shitty parts of his behaviours for ages and now we have this sea change in him. He's finally looking past the end of his fucking nose and don't know want to do with it.”

 Yasmin gave him a long suffering, knowing look, “I know what you hope happens with it...”

“ ‘Mina .”

“...because now he might not be a horrific mistake.”

“I'm not arrogant enough to assume he'd even want to.”

“It is right to be humble. But wise to be prepared.”

“I wasn't prepared for this.”

“You're twenty-one, you shouldn't be wise.”

“The little shit has thrown me totally. But I’m so relieved.”

“Darling…”

“I like him plenty all the times I don't want to push every one of his buttons.”

 She shook her head, something fond but sad in her eyes, “You’ve never made anything easy for yourself.”

“Not having to walk uphill in a gale feels like an ambush.”

“I know. I know.”

“That’s not why…”

“I know”, she gave the curl at her forehead a gentle tug, “We’re talking like he proposed, he just wants to say sorry for being a dick."

“It’s a lot from him.”

  Yasmin burst out into her cackling laugh, “Oh Derek baby.”

“When we get along it’s great, he’s great, I’m great. And I know when he applies himself he gives it his all. Don't get me wrong, it's about time and I'm glad of it, but...what...what if my investment in our friendship was because I wasn't going to not challenge him or back down and now I if don't need to anymore we just...I...I don't know if or where we go from here.”

“If you don’t know then no-one else will be able tell you _habibi_. You just have a think about why you both kept caring enough to argue back.”

 

 

                                                                                       _X_X_

 

 

 Derek walked into their room, dropped his stuff on his bed and went straight up to the desk, standing over Dex to make him look up from what he was typing.

“I'm here if you still want to apologise.”

 Dex looked caught off guard and Derek thought it served him right after throwing him off kilter for the past week, taking the spot on the desk Dex cleared when he saved his work and moved his laptop over.

“Are you okay now?” 

“Yeah. Better. Been getting my head right for this.”

“Good. That’s good”, Dex nodded, accepting it even if not really understanding and Derek wondered why it was he took anything he said about his depression as the truth while everything else had been a struggle. Not that it wasn’t refreshing for the facts of his illness to be so easily believed for once.

 “Nursey -", Dex started, sitting up straighter to hold Derek’s gaze, “Derek. I am sorry for how I behaved over Dibs. I overreacted, I don’t need to tell you that. I was immature and...you’ve been way more patient with me than I’ve deserved, so thank you for that. I’m sorry you had to be, and for the way I acted. I’m embarrassed at myself and I’m trying...I want your patience to have been worth it.”

“It’s good to know you noticed I _was_ being patient.”

“I always have, but I didn't get how big a deal that was. Thought it was ‘cause we argued and stuff, not that it was because of the way I was ignoring what you were trying to tell me.”

 Derek nodded, thinking about what Rans had said about the respect Dex had for him and decided to meet him a third of the way on this one, “We struggle with that. What we focus on sometimes isn’t always the same. We should work more on listening to and talking over what the other wants to say.” 

“Okay”, Dex huffed a deep breath, brow furrowed as if collecting his thoughts, “I'm sorry about saying you didn't deserve this room, I'm sorry for thinking I should have it, and I'm really sorry for acting like sharing with you was the end of the fucking world. I'm sorry for ignoring what you try to tell me when I’m being a shithead Hockey player, I’m gonna try to be less of one”, his shoulders shifted nervously, “I can't...I won’t give you a insincere apology for things I don't realise I've done, but when I do I will.”

“You behaved like a brat that evening, but I was sympathetic to your situation until you started sounding like every white boy I’ve ever had to deal with who was butthurt because I wasn’t the black kid just glad to be there. And I know I don’t yell at Wicks or the other guys about their chirps but that’s because they’re not my friend and therefore not worth what energy I have to spare. You have more fun when you're irritating the other team anyway”, Derek had a similar feeling in his chest to when a difficult stanza or sentence finally came good, leaning down to squeeze Dex's hand and doing a very good job of not laughing at the way his eyes widened, “You apologise to me by being better.”

“I will. I promise.”

“I know you will. Thank you for saying sorry. I didn't think I'd be getting one, let alone six.”

 Dex scowled down at their hands, “I hate that I let you think that I hated you, you deserve better from me. I haven't been thinking about what really matters.”

 Derek almost, _almost,_ let himself be cliché and breathlessly ask just what was is it that really mattered, thankfully restraining himself as he looked down at Dex blushing awkwardly.

“Would you believe me if I told you I've been trying to shove you towards this point for two and a half years?”

 “Yeah, sounds like the kind of dumb stubborn shit you'd do for someone who doesn't deserve it.”

“It's a good thing I like you and I'm a soft touch.”

“Yes. It is.”

 

 

* * *

 

_“If the person you are talking to doesn’t appear to be listening, be patient. It may simply be that he has a small piece of fluff in his ear.”_

_― Winnie the Pooh, A.A. Milne._

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this under the influence of way too much couscous and brownies so forgive if any food-coma vagueries that may have crept in.


End file.
